ATI 9200 Dual Display setup problem

[schmosef]

Hi Guys,

I just built a new system for home use:

Shuttle SB75S LE
P4 3.2GHz
1GB RAM
74GB WD Raptor SATA HDD
LG DVD Burner
2 Samsung 191T+ LCD Monitors
PowerColor ATI 9200 based PCI Video Card

The PCI Video card is only temporary until I can get my hands on a new X800 based AGP card. At that point I'll use the PCI card to run my second display on the DVI port.

Currently, I'm trying to enable dual display on the PCI card. I know that ATI cards don't support DVI+Analog the way Matrox cards do so I've used the DVI to Analog adapter that came with my PCI card and have both monitors hooked up to their analog inputs.

My problem is that when I extend my desktop to the second monitor, all I get is garbage on the second screen. I've tried switching primary displays and it's always the secondary display that just appears as a screen of junk. I've tried installing ATI's HydraVision software too but that didn't help.

Interestingly, if I don't extend the desktop in the settings tab of the display properties control panel, I can enable a cloned display by toggling the power button in the displays tab of the ATI driver pages. The clone has really bad picture quality with lots of ghosting of vertical lines. Really I just want to extend my desktop to both screens for a few weeks until the new ATI card comes in. Then I'll be able to run the two cards independantly.

I'm using the CAT 4.5 drivers and the latest Hydravision.

Maybe I'm not doing something right in how I'm trying to enable dual display?

Any advice would be appreciated.

As I was writing this I double checked ATI's website and it seems to imply that only the 9200Pro based cards can run multiple monitors and that the 9200 and 9200SE cards can only do TV out. This seems to contradict the product packaging that the PowerColor card came in.

Anybody know any more about this?

[schmosef]

Interestingly, I just did a print screen to try to capture the garbage on the secondary display so I could post a picture, but instead of the secondary screen appearing as static in the pasted image, it appeared properly. I guess the card is rendering the desktop correctly in memory, but communicating to monitor incorrectly. I hope it's a driver (or config issue) that can be fixed.

Any help?

[Belwarrior]

Is your secondary monitor the one connected through the DVI->Analog converter?
Try switching the monitors to see if the problem remains.

[schmosef]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I've tried setting both monitors as primary in the desktop properties settings tab. Whichever ends up as secondary just shows up as garbled static.

I'm going to post at Rage3D to see if anyone there has a suggestion.

[The PIT]

Does it work if you use the digital input out of interest. Does it work properly on a single monitor on either connection on the video vard.

[schmosef]

It works just fine if I use either port by itself. When I use an analog connection it detects as a "Monitor" when I use the DVI connection it detects as an "FPD".

It fact, with both connected they are both detected as separate "Monitors".

[Wombat]

Does this garbage look like memory corruption?

Or, if you enable two displays, do you have any memory conflicts reported by windows?

[The PIT]

Under the display control panel you'll see a tab called options. Have a play with those.
Also download rforce (i think it's that) and check to see if your monitor drivers have been loaded correctly. It's possible that the wrongs ones are being used.

[schmosef]

@Wombat - the garbage looks like random junk tiled on the screen. I'll have to get out my digital camera to take a pic. I've got no memory conflicts reported in Windows.

@The Pit - The options tab has some settings for DVI operation. I tried those and it didn't do anything different. I'm reasonably sure that I'm using the right monitor drivers. I started out using the plug and play driver and then tried the samsung driver. The primary display always looks fine. It's whichever monitor I set to be secondary that looks wrong. I'll look into the rforce thing though.

BTW, I'm using WindowsXP Pro. Probably should have mentioned that earlier.